Observation is a whole brain skill. Using your senses at the fullest capacity that you can, paying close attention to many details, focus, analyzing, reasoning, and memory all take many processes in your brain. Many people envy those that are highly observant, degrading their own Powers of Observation. They seem to fail to realize that these skills can be developed and honed through diligence and training. Here are the activities that I have found that aid in improving my own Powers of Observation. Observation will not only help you to be more aware and smarter in general, but job performance will increase, relationships, etc. Observation is a highly important life skill that many people take for granted.

Ad

Steps

1

Meditate. Mindful Meditation is the act of clearing your mind to pay attention to the moment and the world around you. Sitting Meditation is the best way to begin, close you eyes, and focus on your breathing. The idea isn’t to get lost in your thoughts or the world around you. Keep your focused attention on your breath, while practicing awareness of these things, kind of like being a tape recorder. Practicing this for thirty minutes a day, you will begin training your mind to pay attention to the environment, and you will hone your attention and focus, two highly important skills needed for observation. Researchers of Meditation have discovered that they grey matter housing Attention, Focus, and Sensory Processing thicken and grow in size through regular Meditation. They have also discovered that Meditation enhances the Brain’s activity levels, similar to shifting a car into a higher gear. This means faster processing, better memory, focus, attention, etc. All skills that are important for observation.

Ad

2

Practice Logic Constantly. Granted that Logic and Observation are separate, they blend perfectly. Practicing Logic Puzzles, Rubik Cubes, Cryptograms, etc. will aid in honing your Powers of Logical Reasoning. Sites that offer Brain Games often offer Logic Exercises, helping to improve your own Logic. Through daily practice, the art of logic will become natural and easy for you, allowing you to extract information not presented to the naked eye. This can lead a person to being steps ahead of the game.

3

Practice Memory Recollection. Memory is another tool that observers use in observation, either that, they observe in hopes of retaining information. By recalling the days events after the night and thinking about them, you exercise four parts of your brain. That involved in Memory, Working Memory, Reasoning, and Analyzing. Many of the same skills that are used when effectively observing. For further improvement, practice long-term memory once a week by picking either a date or event, then recall and think about as many details as possible. This exercises the same skills in a much more dramatic manner and will help enhance the functionality of your Frontal Lobes. Thinking about things in such a way also helps one to be able to extract more knowledge from their experiences, gain a more mature and rational perspective on the past and maybe even resolves any confusion about the past. The same skills can be applied to forethought. Helping one to stay alert of what is happening in their lives and giving an idea of what is to come.

4

Experience New Things. Experiencing new things helps to improve observation by engaging your attention. Taking it further and consciously remembering to pay close attention to the details of the environment and experience will help enrich the experience, increase knowledge, and using your powers of observation is the best way to improve the skills involved.

5

Learn Through Trial and Error. Consistently check back to figure out what you really do observe, and then figure out new details that you should check when observing that will improve your skills. If you consistently forget to pay close attention, then try to find some ways to help you remind yourself. The skill takes much training, and with that training, you will find them becoming more automatic and easier to use.

6

Test your observation and recollection skill. Take a pen and paper and walk out of the room. Now, write everything down which is in the room. Any object, don't leave anything out. Everything you can remember. You'll find out that you can not remember as many objects as you thought you can. Remember: you may not look at the room while writing down the objects. Go back to the room and look at everything you missed, everything you saw countless time but didn't observe. Now observe everything closely. Repeat the test and you will see that the list is now longer. Keep doing this everyday and you will become better. You can do this exercise with anything: Peoples faces, peoples clothes, objects, dogs, basically: Anything with a lot of detail.

Ad

We could really use your help!

Can you tell us aboutinfinity mirrors?

Yes

No

infinity mirrors

how to make an infinity mirror

Can you tell us aboutproductivity?

Yes

No

productivity

how to increase your productivity

Can you tell us aboutschool survival kits?

Yes

No

school survival kits

how to make a school survival kit

Can you tell us abouthair and hairstyling?

Yes

No

hair and hairstyling

how to straighten your hair with a flat iron

Thanks for helping! Please tell us everything you know about

...

Tell us everything you know here. Remember, more detail is better.

Tips

Provide Details.

Please be as detailed as possible in your explanation. Don't worry about formatting! We'll take care of it.
For example:Don't say: Eat more fats.Do say: Add fats with some nutritional value to the foods you already eat. Try olive oil, butter, avocado, and mayonnaise.

Tips

Remember that this could take a while depending on the way you work and how dedicated you are. But it can be done just work hard and pay attention to everything.

Remember to keep track of what you observe.

Observation is a skill that takes time to hone, keep practicing even if you think you will never improve your awareness.

I would recommend for the memory recollection you ask yourself specific questions in order to recall more detail ex. "What clothes did he/she wear," "How did the conversation start." The more you ask questions the better you'll get get in recalling memory.

Awareness tests are excellent tools to both improve and track your improvements

Warnings

Your thoughts can go against you, it's difficult to ALWAYS be aware of everything, stick to what you can do.

Share

Featured Articles

Meet a Community Member

Meet Chris, a wikiHowian from the US who has been on the site over 4 years and is a Featured Author and New Article Booster. He has started 855 articles and made over 53,000 contributions to wikiHow. While he's enjoyed researching and writing how-tos on all sorts of topics, his favorite article he has started is How to Listen to Free Disney Parks Music Online on Live365. He is very proud of the work he's done adding great screenshots for articles throughout the site. He enjoys sharing his knowledge with others and appreciates the loving, caring, and nurturing relationship that everyone in the community has with one another. His advice to new editors is to ask for help whenever you need it; there are plenty of friendly wikiHowians waiting to help answer your editing questions!